HOWARD  UNIVERSITY  RECORD 

Volume  11.  DECEMBER  1917.  Number  7. 


Four  Addresses 

at 

The    Semi-  Centennial 

of 

Howard  University 

March  7,  1917 

Hon.  Franklin  K.  Lane,  The  Secretary  of  the  Interior 

Carl   Kelsey,    Ph.D.,     University  of  Pennsylvania 

H.  T.  Kealing,   D.D.,  President  Western  University 

W.  P.  Thirkield,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Bishop  of  M,  E.  Church 


Howard  University 
Washington,  D.  C. 


HOWARD  UNIVERSITY  RECORD:  Published  by  Howard  University  in  January,  March, 
April,  May,  June,  November  and  December.  Subscription  price,  one  year,  twenty-five  cents, 
Entered  at  the  Post  Office  at  Washington,  D.  C,  as  second  class  mail  matter. 


HOWARD  UNIVERSITY 
BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 


Ex-Chief  Justice  STANTON  J.  PEELLE,  LL.  D..  President  of  Board  of  Trustee* 
STEPHEN  M.  NEWMAN,  D.    D..  President  of  the  University 
GEORGE  Wm.  COOK,  LL.  M.,  Secretary  andBusiness  Manager 
EDWARD  L.  PARKS,  D.  D..  Treasurer  and  Registrar 


Term  expires  1918 

Justice  GEORGE   W.  ATKINSON,  LL.  D.,   Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  H.  PAUL  DOUGLASS,  D.  D.,  New  York  City. 

ANDREW  F.  HILYER,  LL.M.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  STEPHEN M.  NEWMAN,  D.  D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Ex-Chief  Justice  STANTON  J.  PEELLE,  LL.  D.,  Washington,  D.  C 

Rev.  ULYSSES   G.  B.  PIERCE,  D.  D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  CHARLES  H.  RICHARDS,  D.  D.,  New  York  City. 


Term  expires  1919 

Justice  JOB  BARNARD.  LL.  D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
WILLIAM  V.  COX,  A.  M.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Rev.  FRANCIS   J.  GRIMKE,  D.  D.,  Washington,  D.C. 
Bishop  JOHN  HURST,  Baltimore.  Md. 
Hon.  CUNO  H.  RUDOLPH,  Washington,  D.  C. 
WILLIAM  A.  SINCLAIR,  M.  D.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


Term  expires  1920 

Mr.  JOHN  T.  EMLEN.  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

THOMAS  JESSE  JONES,  Ph.  D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  JESSE  E.  MOORLAND,  D.  D..  Washington,  D.  C. 

Hon.  JAMES    C.  NAPIER,  LL.  D.,   Nashville,    Tenn. 

CHARLES   B.  PURVIS,  M.  D.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Justice   WENDELL  PHILIPS   STAFFORD,  Washington,  D.  C. 

JAMES   H.  N.   WARING,    M.  D.,   Kings  Park,  L.  I. 

MARCUS   F.   WHEATLAND.  M.  D.,   Newport,   R.  I. 


HONORARY   MEMBERS 

Mr.  JOHN  A.  COLE,  Chicago.  111. 

Bishop  BENJAMIN  F.  LEE,  D.  D.,  Wilberforce,  Ohio. 

Mr.  HENRY  E.  PELLEW,  Washington.  D.  C. 

Hon.  JOSEPH  D.  SAYERS,  Austin,  Texas. 

Hon.  WILLIAM  H.  TAFT,  LL.  D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Bishop  BENJAMIN  TUCKER  TANNER,  LL.D.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Bishop  WILBUR  P.   THIRKIELD,  LL.D.,  New  Orleans.  La 

Hon.  GEORGE  H.  WHITE.  Philadelphia.  Pa. 


PATRON    EX-OFFICIO 

Hon.  FRANKLIN  K.LANE.  Secretary  of  the  Interior 


SEMI-CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES 


HT  the  Semi-Centennial  Mass  Meeting  in  Convention  Hall 
on  the  evening  of  Thursday,  March  1,  1917,  with  Ex- 
Chief  Justice  Staunton  J.  Peelle,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  presiding,  the  following  four  addresses  were  given. 
The  general  topic  was: 

The  Significance  of  the  Fifty  Years  of  History  of 
Howard  University,  and  of  the  Advance  of  the  Colored 
Race  with  which  it  is  Connected. 

From  the  Point  of  View  of  the  Nation, 

by  Secretary  Franklin  K.  Lane. 
From  the  Educational  and  Sociological  Point  of  View, 

by  Professor  Carl  Kelsey,  Ph.D. 
From  the  Point  of  View  of  the  Negro, 

by  President  H.  T.  Kealing,  D.D. 
From  the  Point  of  View  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 

by  Bishop  W.  P.  Thirkield,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


I 
Address  by  Secretary  Lane 

[When  Justice  Peelle  introduced  Secretary  Lane  the  students  instantly 
gave  him  the  greeting  of  the  ''Howard  Clap"  which  accounts  for  his 
first  words.] 

That  is  the  best  welcome  that  one  University  man  can  give 
to  another.  It  carries  me  back  many  years  and  far  away,  to  the 
days  when  I  was  a  student  at  Berkeley,  in  California,  and  we 
welcomed  in  similar  fashion  those  who  came  before  us.  We 
did  not  have  the  advantage  that  you  have  of  being  in  the  heart 
of  things — at  the  very  heart  of  the  Nation,  where  history  is  being 

3 


made  day  by  day,  and  did  not  feel  that  thrill  that  you  must  feel 
each  day  as  you  know  what  is  transpiring  in  this,  the  capital  of 
the  country. 

I  look  upon  Howard  University  as  an  institution  that  was 
founded  as  a  challenge  to  the  Negro.  It  was  started  at  a  time 
when  men  doubted  the  capacity  of  the  colored  man  to  rise  to 
any  higher  estate  than  that  in  which  he  had  been  held. 

I  am  fifty-three  years  old.  I  was  born  when  the  Civil  War 
was  coming  to  an  end.  I  was  born  only  a  year  or  so  after  some  of 
the  older  men  who  are  here  were  still  in  a  state  of  slavery.  That 
seems  today  an  impossibility;  nevertheless,  it  is  true.  And  then 
three  years  after  I  was  born  this  institution  was  started  —  a  uni- 
versity for  a  race  that  but  three  years  before  had  been  in  a  state 
of  slavery.  That  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  challenges  ever 
given  by  fate  to  mankind.  I  know  of  nothing  like  it  in  all  his- 
tory. It  was  not  founded  upon  fact;  it  was  not  founded  upon 
what  had  been  done;  it  was  founded  by  men  of  large  heart  and 
of  great  vision — upon  what  they  believed  was  possible.  It  was 
the  outgrowth  of  a  belief  in  the  essential  chivalry  of  the  Negro, 
and  that  is  one  element  in  him  that  I  have  heard  too  little  spoken 
of,  for  he  is  romantic  and  chivalrous,  and  chivalry  I  take  to  be  the 
acceptance — the  prompt  acceptance — of  an  appeal  to  his  higher 
nature.  And  so,  when  this  University  was  founded  it  was  found- 
ed in  the  face  of  adversity,  by  men  who  said  to  you  colored  men — 
"You  believe  you  are  capable  of  greater  things;  you  say  you 
have  aspirations  to  make  your  race  self-sufficient;  that  you  can 
supply  yourselves  with  ministers  and  doctors  and  lawyers  and 
chemists  and  teachers," — and  I  put  the  teachers  last  because 
generally  I  believe  that  that  is  a  mark  of  distinction  — there  is  no 
profession  comparable  with  that  of  the  teaching  profession — 
"you  say  you  can  do  these  things  for  your  race;  that  you  can 
prove  yourselves  competent  to  lead  your  people,  and  so  we  estab- 
lish Howard  University  as  a  challenge  to  you.  Come  and  prove 
whether  you  have  the  spirit  of  response  and  the  capacity,  or 
not."  And  here  I  find  myself  in  the  presence  of  young  men 
who  are  graduates  in  law,  practicing  at  the  bar  of  the  different 
courts  in  many  states;  physicians,  surgeons,  some  almost  promi- 
nent in  their  profession;  teachers, — so  you  have  risen   in  your 


spirit  and  accepted  that  challenge  and  justifiably  have  come 
home  to  Howard  to  send  up  your  cheer  and  to  show  the  world 
that  you  have  made  good.  As  a  representative  of  this  Gov- 
ernment, as  the  head  of  all  there  is  of  the  educational  depart- 
ment of  the  United  States,  and  in  particular  as  one  of  the  super- 
visors for  your  University,  I  extend  to  you  my  congratulations 
on  behalf  of  the  Nation. 

This  University,  too,  is  an  evidence  of  an  element  in  our 
natures  that  is  essential  to  progress;  it  is  an  evidence  of  discon- 
tent. There  can  be  no  progress  without  it.  You,  in  your  fore- 
fathers, lived  more  of  a  life  of  contentment  than  you  live  today. 
Your  grandfathers  and  your  great-grandfathers  were  far  more 
contented  than  you  are  or  than  your  children  will  be.  Make  up 
your  minds  to  that.  You  have  left  contentment  behind.  Con- 
tentment is  not  to  be  your  portion  in  the  future,  but  there  are 
two  kinds  of  discontent.  There  is  a  discontent  of  Heaven  and  a 
discontent  of  Hell;  there  is  a  discontent  that  is  Divine  and  there 
is  a  discontent  that  is  Satanic;  there  is  a  discontent  that  is  con- 
structive, and  you  represent  in  this  University  the  Divine,  the 
constructive  kind  of  discontent;  the  aspiration,  the  hungering 
after  something  higher,  which  lifts  man  up  out  of  the  slime  and 
makes  him  like  unto  God.  That  flag  is  in  itself  an  evidence 
of  discontent;  its  stars  and  its  stripes  were  born  in  travail,  in 
struggle,  out  of  the  discontent  of  the  human  soul.  We  would 
not  glory  in  the  names  of  those  men  who  fought  for  our  liberties 
or  in  the  names  of  those  who  fought  for  your  liberties  unless 
they  had  within  themselves  the  discontent  with  conditions  that 
existed  and  an  inspiration  for  something  that  was  better.  But 
with  that  aspiration  must  come  will  to  work.  Aspiration 
reaches  nowhere;  aspiration  is  an  idle  phenomenon — a  disease  of 
the  soul,  unless  it  can  be  crystalized  into  something  that  is  tan- 
gible; unless  it  is  made  into  a  crop  of  wheat,  into  a  table,  into  a 
building,  into  something  that  is  useful  to  mankind.  And  so  that 
flag  of  ours  would  have  been  an  idle,  worthless  thing — an  aspi- 
ration if  you  please — an  idle,  worthless  longing,  had  it  not  been 
that  men  were  willing  to  sacrifice  for  it  and  have  been  loyal 
to  it. 


Let  me  say  this  word  to  you.  No  men  in  this  Nation  have 
a  better  right  to  claim  eminence  in  that  great  virtue  of  loyalty 
than  have  you,  as  you  have  proved  when  you  have  been  tried. 
I  reckon  no  higher  proof  of  loyalty  was  ever  given  by  your  fa- 
thers in  the  days  of  slavery  when  into  your  hands  was  entrusted 
the  care  of  the  property  of  those  men  who  were  fighting  against 
your  freedom.  And  no  greater  courage  and  no  greater  loyalty 
have  ever  been  shown  by  any  of  the  troops  of  the  United  States 
than  was  shown  in  Cuba  when  you  had  the  chance,  and  but  a 
year  ago  at  Carrizal,  in  Mexico.  You  have  the  courage.  Your 
courage  no  one  questions,  and  in  these  days  when  we  who  have 
to  do  with  large  affairs  of  state  are  counting  up  the  assets  of  this 
country  and  asking  ourselves  and  asking  each  other/'  Who  is  there 
that  can  be  counted  upon;  who  is  there  that  is  sure;  who  is  there 
whose  loyalty  to  that  flag  is  unquestioned,  no  matter  what 
comes,"  we  know  that  the  Negro  can  be  counted  upon.  No  man 
has  any  reason  to  say  that  the  colored  man  in  the  United  States 
is  not,  first  of  all,  a  loyal  American. 

So  I  greet  you  gladly.  I  would  that  I  could  be  here  fifty 
years  from  now  to  see  the  progress  that  your  University  and 
your  people  have  made,  but  there  will  be  some  here,  sons  of 
liberty,  free  men,  and  they  will  rejoice  with  you  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  this  institution  of  higher  education  and  the  aspira- 
tions that  you  have,  and  in  the  strength  of  character  and  the 
good  sense  and  loyalty  that  you  have  shown,  because  a  Univer- 
sity is  not  teachers,  and  it  is  not  buildings,  and  it  is  not  libraries, 
but  it  is  men  who  have  ideals,  and  those  you  have. 


II 

Address  by  Professor  Kelsey 

WHAT  is  this  thing  that  we  call  education?  For  my 
purpose  to-night  I  am  going  to  say  it  is  learning  how. 
It  is  education  when  the  child  learns  to  walk.  It  is 
education  when  the  child  learns  to  eat;  when  it  learns  to  breathe; 
when  it  learns  to  speak;  when  it  learns  to  see  things,  and  that  is 
the  starting  point  of  our  education— the  training  of  our  physical 
bodies  to  do  the  things  that  our  bodies  are  called  on  to  do.  But 
assume  that  we  have  gotten  that  ability,  so  that  we  may  walk; 
that  we  may  speak  and  control  ourselves. 

Then  there  comes  the  next  step  in  education.  It  is  the 
learning  how  to  get  a  living — the  most  fundamental  of  all  the  arts 
of  man.  by  no  means  the  easiest  but  of  all  the  most  important.  I 
care  not  in  what  language  you  speak  or  how  many  languages  you 
speak,  if  you  know  not  how  to  get  a  living  you  are  not  of  much 
value  on  this  earth,  whatever  you  may  be  worth  somewhere  else, 
by  and  by. 

There  was  a  day — how  long  ago  I  know  not — when  this 
human  race  of  ours  was  little  better  than  animals.  It  had  trained 
its  senses;  it  had  learned  to  feed  itself  on  the  foods  provided  by 
nature.  Then  came  some  great  man,  who  invented  the  art  of  mak- 
ing fire — a  greater  invention,  Mr.  President,  than  any  recorded  in 
the  Patent  Office  at  Washington,  in  its  influence  on  the  human 
race  and  on  the  possibility  of  developing  civilization.  Then  came 
another  great  man — I  know  not  where  or  when  — who  invented 
the  bow  and  arrow,  the  most  useful  implement,  perhaps,  that  man 
has  ever  made  on  this  earth,  unless  you  except  some  very  recent 
discoveries.  I  mention  two  of  the  great  inventions  of  the  earth, 
which  revolutioned  life  for  those  who  possessed  those  particular 
tools. 

These  early  discoveries  mark  the  starting  point  of  the  long 
process  of  learning  how  to  control  Nature  for  our  purposes.  I 
can  not  even  sketch  the  chapter  headings  of  that  great  history. 
I  want  to  mention  three  parts  of  it.  First,  the  control  of  the 
mechanical  forces — the  physical  units  and  elements  which  have 
made  possible  all  the  great  buildings  of  man  and  the  great  ma- 
chinery of  man;  all  the  great  commerce.   All  these  depend  upon 

7 


our  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  wood  and  iron  and  steel  and 
a  half  dozen  other  things,  that  are  common  on  this  earth.  It 
took  ages  of  study  to  find  how  to  shape  these  things  and  use 
them,  and  today  in  the  field  of  physics  about  the  only  thing  that 
man  can  not  make  is  life  itself. 

Second,  long  ages  ago,  before  written  records  began,  some 
man  or  some  woman  began  to  cultivate  certain  plants ;  to  take  care 
of  certain  animals,  and  started  the  development  of  our  stock  and 
of  cultivated  plants.  Not  a  single  important  animal  has  been  do- 
mesticated within  the  memory  of  man;  not  a  single  important, 
food  plant  has  been  cultivated  first,  within  the  memory  of  man; 
not  a  single  important  food  plant  has  been  brought  under  cultiva- 
tion within  our  knowledge.  You  and  I  live  here  in  America  to- 
day and  in  America  almost  every  animal  on  which  we  depend 
for  our  civilization  has  been  brought  here  by  man,  from  other 
countries;  every  important  food  plant,  with  the  exception  of  corn, 
has  been  brought  into  the  United  States  from  some  other  place 
on  earth.  Corn  was  cultivated  by  the  Indians  in  Mexico  and 
Central  America  and  brought  North  long  before  the  coming  of 
white  Europeans. 

The  third  great  field  is  the  control  of  those  types  of  minute 
life  which  cause  the  thing  we  call  disease.  One  of  the  great  de- 
partments of  your  University  is  the  Medical  Department.  Do 
you  realize  that  the  whole  science  of  medicine  was  at  one  time 
nothing  but  magic,  and  that  the  valuable  element  in  magic  was 
the  fact  that  the  magician  believed  he  could  do  something  to  or 
for  other  people;  that  he  could  get  control  of  some  of  these 
things  in  the  world  about  him.  He  refused  to  be  defeated;  he 
refused  to  say  f'No."  He  experimented  with  every  crude  non- 
sensical thing  he  could  think  of,  and  out  of  that  grew  this  science 
of  medicine.  Do  you  realize  that  my  white  ancestors  of  Europe, 
400  years  ago,  died  at  an  average  age  of  20,  and  do  you  realize 
that  the  average  length  of  life  today  in  the  United  States  is  ap- 
proximately 45?  In  400  years  we  have  doubled  the  average  life 
span  of  the  European  and  North  American,  and  that  doubling 
of  life  has  been  brought  about  in  a  very  large  measure  by  the 
work  of  the  physician. 


One  of  the  last  and  hardest  things  on  earth  to  domesticate  is 
man  himself.  We  have  learned  to  control  some  of  the  inanimate 
forces  and  things  in  nature.  We  have  gotten  our  foodstuff  and 
our  clothing  supply  from  domestic  plants  and  animals.  We  are 
winning  the  fight  against  the  dread  diseases  that  kill  us  before 
our  time.  The  sole  question  for  the  future  is,  Can  we  win  the 
fight  of  domesticating  man  himself?  I  mean  the  development  of 
an  ideal  of  civilization,  of  culture  which  is  not  a  miscellaneous 
mass  of  misinformation  about  unconnected  and  unrelated  things, 
but  a  culture  that  fits  us  to  live  in  the  world  physically,  in  the 
world  socially;  which  helps  us  to  respect  the  rights  of  other  men, 
to  develop  our  own  manhood  by  following  ideals  of  conduct  that 
entitle  us  to  the  respect  of  others — that  is  the  last  and  perhaps 
the  greatest  achievement. 

You  represent,  most  of  you  here,  people  of  a  different  racial 
background  from  that  which  happens  to  be  mine.  I  wonder  if 
you  realize  that  we  have  a  lot  in  common  after  all.  I  happen  to 
represent  in  the  college  life  of  today  the  subject  called  "Sociology," 
which  some  people  say  does  not  exist,  which  other  people  say 
ought  to  be  killed,  which  other  psople  tolerate  because  they  don't 
know  how  to  kill  it,  and  which  most  of  them  are  afraid  of  for  some 
mysterious  reason  that  they  don't  understand  themselves.  Those 
of  us  who  ar?  interested  in  great  social  problems  of  to-day  are  in 
a  sense  having  a  fight  to  get  recognition  of  the  fact  that  man  must 
live  as  a  social  being  and  that  therefore  we  must  find  out  what  things 
may  be  modified  for  his  betterment.  You  are  having  a  great  fight 
with  one  of  the  most  wonderful  opportunities  that  has  ever  come 
on  earth  to  a  relatively  undeveloped  people — the  fight  to  prove  to 
the  world  again  that  there  is  no  place  for  any  man  or  any  race  except 
that  place  which  they  fit  themselves  to  fill  and  that  the  man  or 
the  race  that  fits  itself  to  fiH  increasingly  a  higher  position  can 
never  be  kept  in  the  lower  position.  On  the  other  hand,  that  no 
power  on  this  earth  will  ever  lift  an  unwilling,  incompetent,  lazy, 
shiftless  group  into  a  higher  position  amongst  human  races.  That 
is  your  job.  Nobody  can  do  it  for  you;  nobody  can  tell  which  of 
you  will  survive  in  the  struggle,  which  of  you  will  go  down,  but 
coming  to  you  as  a  msn  from  another  group  I  say  I  know  of  no 
reason  under  the  sun  why  you   should  not  follow  the  course  of 

9 


civilization  that  every  other  race  has  followed,  provided  you  want 
to,  and  there  is  the  task  of  your  educational  institutions.  You 
have  a  wonderful  chance,  young  men  and  young  women.  It  is 
in  many  ways  easier  for  any  of  you  to  become  the  leaders  of  the 
Negroes  than  it  is  for  the  young  white  youth  to  rise  above  the 
average  of  the  white  group. 

I  have  faith  in  our  country;  I  have  faith  in  you.  Let  us  demon- 
strate our  faith  and  make  our  University,  wThether  it  is  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  which  I  represent  and  wrhose  greeting  I 
bring  you  tonight,  or  Howard  University,  one  of  the  great  vital 
forces  for  the  improvement  of  the  human  race. 

I  was  born  not  long  after  Howrard  University  was  founded. 
At  that  time  few  dreamed  of  the  wonderful  educational  develop- 
ment soon  to  take  place.  Within  my  own  lifetime,  then,  Ameri- 
ca has  come,  not  to  believe  in  Negro  education  as  a  possibility,  but 
to  recognize  it  as  a  necessity  and  welcome  it  as  desirable. 
Among  the  schools  for  Negroes  Howard  University  has  always 
been  prominent.  The  faith  and  devotion  of  trustees  and  teachers 
have  been  rewarded  in  the  successful  lives  of  your  graduates.  I 
trust  the  future  will  show  even  greater  achievements.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  purpose  of  education  is  better  summed  up  in  the 
word  "service"  then  in  the  word  "information."  There  is  no 
limit  to  the  service  that  Howard  University  can  give  to  the  country. 


10 


Ill 

Address  by  President  Kealing 

THE  makers  of  this  program  have  boxed  the  compass 
in  looking  at  the  significance  of  Howard  University's 
half  century  from  the  four  cardinal  view  points  an- 
nounced. 

It  is  well  to  note  that  none  of  these  views  is  exclusive;  the 
nation  includes  the  Negro  and  the  Negro  involves  the  nation; 
the  educational  and  sociological  principles  involved  in  the  inter- 
play of  the  two  elements  lift  the  whole  question  from  the  spo- 
radic, the  specific,  the  accidental  and  the  casual,  into  the  realm 
of  those  human-divine  verities  and  spiritual  sequences  which 
terminate  in  the  view  point  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  Hence  the 
whole  horizon  of  the  subject  is  brought  into  view. 

Here  is  an  institution  founded  in  days  and  upon  circum- 
stances which  can  never  recur;  founded  in  advance  of  any  gen- 
eral belief  in  the  higher  education  of  the  Negro;  a  work  of  love 
and  faith  even  while  the  debris  and  embers  of  hate  and  suspicion 
Were  angrily  smoking  and  charring  throughout  the  nation;  when 
those  who  favored  freedom  on  the  score  of  humanity  had  no 
tangible  evidence  of  high  soul  fibre  in  the  freedman;  when  those 
who  had  enslaved  him  felt  the  travesty  of  prostituting  learning 
to  his  benumbed  understanding;  when,  aside  from  the  exceptions 
of  Banneker,  Phylis  Wheatley  and  Frederick  Douglas  (prodigies 
and  quite  aside  from  the  point,  because  not  the  products  of  col- 
lege training)  no  instance  of  high  capacity  could  be  cited  or  pro- 
duced in  the  history  of  the  typical  American  Negro  slave — these 
were  the  days,  and  this  their  complexion,  when  the  historic  and 
the  Quixotic  little  group  met  in  Washington  November  20, 1866, 
to  plan  a  school  for  colored  preachers.  But  the  time  was  so  ripe, 
the  zeal  so  high  and  God  so  nigh  that  the  idea  broadened  by  first 
one  addition  and  then  another  until  normal  and  collegiate  privi- 
leges were  included  and  all  restrictions  of  race  excluded.  In 
these  final  suggestions  of  enlargement  two  names  blaze  out — 
General  O.  O.  Howard  and  U.  S.  Senator  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy 
of  Kansas. 

It  is  almost  poetic  in  its  appropriateness  that  Senator  Pome- 
roy's  state,  with  its  own  (dramatic  contribution  to  freedom,  refuge 

11 


and  education  for  the  Negro,  should  figure  in  this  historic 
occasion;  and  while  I  am  conscious  of  the  inadequacy  of  the 
messenger  sent  to  speak  for  Kansas,  I  am  overwhelmed  by  the 
personal  honor  and  gratified  that  the  race  giving  most  significance 
to  this  occasion  is  represented  in  the  mouthpiece. 

Senator  Pomeroy's  imbibition  of  the  Kansas  spirit  was  never 
better  shown  than  when  all  invidious  restrictions  were  removed, 
and  that,  coupled  with  the  final  suggestion  of  General  O.  O. 
Howard  that  the  institution  have  full  university  privileges,  gave 
us  in  the  language  of  Dr.  D.  B.  Nichols,  "the  full  corn  in  the 
ear"  which  we  know  as  Howard  University,  "for  the  education 
of  the  youth  in  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences."  But  how  has  the 
great  body  of  the  Negro  race,  not  numbered  as  students,  been 
affected  by  the  fifty  years  of  activity  lived  by  this  institution? 
And  how  do  they  regard  it? 

When  we  consider  the  wonderful  trinary  junction  of  time, 
person  and  tragic  incident  involved  in  this  momentous  event,  we 
are  astounded  at  the  great  forces  that  projected  this  University. 
Here  was  the  capital  of  the  nation,  sitting  in  deep  mourning  for 
a  martyred  President,  while  devising  a  method  of  recombining 
the  elements  of  a  shattered  and  well  nigh  disrupted  union;  the 
slave  States  were  contiguous  on  all  sides  and  the  slave-holding 
sentiment  was  native  and  predominant;  the  war  was  ended  in  the 
battle  field,  but  rife  and  bitter  in  the  civic  councils  of  congress  and 
reconstruction;  it  was  found  necessary  to  devise  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  under  military  rule  to  protect  the  Negro's  material  inter- 
ests and  adjust  his  new  relation  to  his  former  master.  General 
Howard,  so  stern  for  principle  that  he  left  a  part  of  his  body  on 
the  battlefield  of  Fair  Oaks  as  a  hostage  for  his  whole  life,  if  de- 
manded, and  yet  so  tender  and  loving  that  a  prayer  meeting  was 
always  more  welcome  than  a  war  council,  became  the  head  of 
the  Bureau;  the  Negro  was  flocking  to  Washington  in  tattered 
and  childlike  thousands,  because  it  represented  to  him  the  be- 
nevolence and  local  habitation  of  all  that  was  loyal  and  Lincoln- 
esque;  the  local  necessity  of  food,  work  and  clothing  was  very 
pressing;  seething  masses  and  sodden  statesmen  were  delving 
with  heads  down  to  fine}  a  way  out, — when  suddenly,  as  a  shaft 
of  light  flashed  into  a  coal    mine,  came  a  voice   to  the  church, 

12 


through  Boynton  and  his  clerical  associates  ;  to  the  civic  powers, 
through  Henry  Wilson;  to  the  great  new  West,  through  Pome- 
roy,  of  Kansas;  to  the  army,  through  General  Howard,  to  pro- 
vide for  higher  education  for  the  Negro  and  all  people. 

Could  any  suggestion  at  such  a  time  have  been  more  incon- 
gruous or  puerile,  according  to  prevalent  opinion!  But  these  men 
were  inspired.  They,  no  less  than  Harvey,  had  discovered  the 
circulation  of  the  blood,  and  believed  that  every  inoculation  of 
keen  discernment,  high  purpose  and  mental  strength  in  the  few 
would,  in  due  time,  percolate  and  circulate  until,  not  only  Wash- 
ington, but  the  remotest  cane-brake  of  Louisiana,  would  feel  the 
touch  and  tingle  of  racial  purification  and  uplift. 

That  a  great  university  should  spring  out  of  the  sequellae 
of  civil  wrar  and  that  the  United  States  should  be  committed,  first, 
quasi,  and  then  fully  and  formally,  to  what  must  have  seemed 
the  most  chimerical  project  ever  launched  in  the  name  of  serious- 
ness, amazes  me  even  while  I  subconsciously  see  it  as  a  logical 
outcome  of  gigantic  social  forces.  I  can  think  of  nothing  to 
square  it  with  past  experience  save  the  springing  of  Minerva 
from  the  brain  of  Jupiter;  or,  since  even  that  is  mythological, 
honey  taken  from  the  carcass  of  Samson's  dead  lion. 

How  could  we  do  without  the  Christian  soldier  in  history?  A 
William  of  Orange  here,  a  Cromwell  there,  a  Joan  of  Arc  yon- 
der and  a  Howard  in  our  land  show  that  God  participates  in  all 
the  wraths  of  men  and  makes  them  to  praise  Him. 

From  the  Negro's  view  point,  Howard  University  has  given 
tone  as  well  as  opportunity  to  the  many  thousands  of  our  race  in 
Washington  itself.  Hundreds  of  clerks  and  government  employ- 
ees have  been  able  to  shift  from  the  uneasy  and  swaying  perch 
of  appointive  position  to  the  sure,  safe  and  solid  foundation  of 
business  or  professional  life. 

And  by  reflex  action,  it  has  induced  and  coaxed  forward  the 
best  educational  facilities  for  colored  boys  and  girls  of  any  public 
school  system  in  the  country. 

It  has  been  foremost  in  the  refinement  of  social  life,  in  lec- 
tures, clinics  and  researches  of  rare  value. 

It  has  offered  a  constant  and  ever  present  object  lesson  to 
doubters  and  haters  who,  without  it,  could  point,  locally  at  least, 
to  a  Nazareth  of  Negatives  as  to  Negro  capability  and  schol- 
arship. 

13 


All  this  locally,  but  this  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  story. 
Nationally,  it  has  been  :i  great  beacon  to  which  all  eyes  might 
turn  with  hope,  and  this  has  been  as  true  for  the  boy  and  girl 
who  never  could  attend  as  for  the  actual  matriculant.  Thousands 
of  American  citizens  who  have  never  seen  the  Statue  of  Liberty 
on  Bedloe  Island  have  been  enlightened  and  inspired  by  it  as  they 
read  of  its  significance  and  its  bearing  upon  our  ideals  and  their 
own  future.  So  the  course  of  Howard  University  has  meant 
inspiration  and  orientation  to  the  country  lad  who  has  never  seen 
and  perhaps  never  will  see  it.  The  return  of  those  to  his  com- 
munity who  have  attended  here  with  their  new  ideas  and  new 
culture  upon  them,  the  visits  of  your  professors  and  your  deans 
to  remote  and  backward  sections  where  they  have  opened  up  the 
treasure  trove  of  strange  and  high  thought,  the  mention  of  news- 
papers and  books,  the  discussions  in  Congress,  the  local  opinion  and 
discussion  over  all  these  things — these  have  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  whole  nation  a  realization  and  impulse  that  have  made  for  col- 
legiate training  oftimes  in  some  nearer  or  cheaper  institution. 

Again,  your  life  has  corrected  for  foreign,  no  less  than  for 
native,  people  misconceptions  concerning  Negro  idiosyncrasies 
and  capabilities  that  were  well  seated  in  their  minds  by  reason 
of  the  assertions  of  those  who  excused  the  enslavement  of  a  hu- 
man being  on  the  ground  that  he  was  divinely  intended  for  such 
service  and  too  animal  for  high  comprehension. 

Your  founders  attacked  the  whole  citadel  of  stationary  racial 
inferiority,  not  by  verbal  argument,  but  by  a  concretion  of  fact 
that  brought  into  cooperative  service  the  United  States  govern- 
ment, the  church  and  private  enterprise. 

-Howard  is  unique  in  that,  aside  from  its  war  and  naval 
schools,  the  national  government  has  never  before  committed 
itself  to  the  financial  fostering  of  collegiate  education  for  its  citi- 
zens. To  my  mind  the  very  best  returns  have  resulted.  It  has 
in  a  measure  been  college  extension  as  well  as  local  sustentation, 
for  Howard  has  been  the  model  for  many  a  humble  institution 
in  the  back-woods  and  bottoms,  thus  educating  secondarily 
through  its  progeny. 

Again,  never  before  was  it  worked  out  so  fully  that  Caucasian 
and  Negro  association  in  a  Faculty  to  teach  students  in  fact,  if  not  in 

14 


theory,  mainly  colored,  would  not  lead  to  the  dire  and  dreaded 
amalgamation  and  neurotic  emotionalism  that  anti-educationalists 
predicted.  Men  for  the  first  time  saw  the  possibility  of  diverse 
peoples  working  in  perfect  unselfishness  and  racial  loyalty  to  lift 
the  wronged  and  needy. 

It  is  true  that  the  American  Missionary  Association  had  in 
some  degree  pointed  the  way  to  this  possibility,  but  it  was  more 
strictly  a  religious  and  missionary  enterprise  where  until  com- 
paratively recently  colored  teachers  weie  not  used  in  coordinate 
relations. 

No  other  school  has  dignified  its  Negro  scholars  with  chairs 
and  deanships  that  call  them  into  the  calcium  of  respectful  schol- 
arly contemplation  as  has   Howard. 

To  name  some  of  them  would  be  invidious,  but  my  audi- 
ence is  well  able  to  make  its  own  inventory. 

Literature,  too,  has  been  enriched  by  reason  of  Howard 
scholarship.  The  best  is  yet  to  come,  even  from  the  same  brains, 
I  believe. 

Nor  should  it  go  unmentioned  as  a  thing  grateful  and  en- 
couraging to  the  Negro  of  the  nation  that  Howard  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  invest  one  of  the  daik  members  of  its  teaching  force  with 
the  executive  robe  when  the  brilliant  Langs  ton  manifested  his 
fitness,  through  his  achievements  in  the  Law  School,  to  steer  the 
whole  institution  as  acting  President  for  a  time. 

It  has  ever  been  that  men  lack  vision,  or  imagination.  The 
few  who  have  it  are  the  wealthy,  the  learned,  the  scientists,  the 
artists,  the  statesmen. 

The  power  to  give  to  airy  nothings  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name  is  the  power  to  mould  things  and  move  men. 

The  masses  seldom  have  it,  that  is  why  they  form  the  masses. 
It  is  for  the  endowed  few,  many  of  them  possessing  the  power 
unconsciously  until  awakened  by  the  kiss  of  study,  to  forsake  the 
old  and  formal  views  and  dare  a  few  flights  in  their  own  names 
and  rights.  Let  Howard  dare  in  science,  in  experimentation,  in 
invention,  in  combination,  in  method  until  the  highest  pedestal  of 
its  achievement  shall  be  set  up  where  pilgrims  may  come  to 
light  their  lamps.  Nothing  less  will  justify  the  dream  the  incor- 
porating fathers  had. 

15 


God  has  sent  light  into  the  world  unseparated,  but  the  piism 
separates  it  into  the  seven  colors.  Later  men  found  that  actinic 
rays  gave  no  light,  but  fixed  for  all  time  what  the  light  rays 
showed. 

Later  still  they  found  that  there  was  another  ray  that  could 
pierce  so-called  opaque  substances.  These  are  indications  that 
there  are  still  other  rays  not  found.  May  we  not  relegate  them 
to  Howard's  savants  in  the  days  ahead? 

God  sends  the  white  unseparated  light  of  truth  into  the 
world  and  makes  man's  mind  the  prism  that  classifies  this  truth 
into  the  various  sciences.  Mineral  reaction  is  distinguished  from 
life  manifestation;  flower  and  plant  life  are  recognized  as  differ- 
ent from  animal  life;  physics  and  chemistry  are  differentiated; 
flexibility  and  certainty  are  worked  out  in  the  orbits  of  the  plan- 
ets and  in  meteorology. 

Just  as,  by  passing  dispersed  and  separated  light  through  a 
lens,  we  can  get  the  combined  white  light  again,  so  let  us,  with 
all  the  analytical  acuteness  that  gives  us  Geology,  Astronomy, 
Botany,  Physiology,  Mathematics,  Chemistry,  and  Physics,  be 
able  to  pass  it  all  through  the  convergent  lens  of  a  reverent  heart 
and  get  the  pure  white  light  of  truth  as  it  comes  from  God  and 
speeding  through  our  mental  machinery,  goes  back  to  Him,  both 
Author  and  Finisher  of  the  universe. 

Here  we  have  the  balance  wheel  which  has  done  more  than 
anything  else  to  bring  into  proper  view  and  adjustment  the  rela- 
tion of  knowing  to  doing,  the  cognate  and  complementary  char- 
acter of  collegiate  and  industrial  training.  Here,  too,  we  have 
the  most  striking  and  successful  instance  of  educational  and  direc- 
tive cooperation  in  a  Faculty  composed  of  both  races.  Mutual 
respect  and  admiration  obtain  and  we  have  in  one  view  the  fra- 
ternal and  Christian  activities  of  Caucasian  scholarship  united 
with  efficient  and  coordinate  service  by  Negro  professors,  instill- 
ing into  and  exhibiting  before  the  Negro  race  the  idea  that  no 
pent  up  Utica  contracts  our  powers;  that  students  inspired  by  the 
spectacle  of  their  own  kind  in  places  of  honor  and  responsibility, 
may  learn  the  lesson  of  leadership  as  well  as  that  of  complaisant 
following. 

Initiative  is  one  of  our  greatest  needs.  We  should  do  some- 
thing different,  enter  new  fields,  forsake  places  of  fixed  salary  for 

16 


dividends  and  self-directed  profits.  A  glance  at  the  census  re- 
turns for  the  year  1910  shows  how  numerously  we  enter  employ- 
ments we  have  always  been  in  and  how  rarely  we  break  new 
ground. 

We  need  more  of  the  pioneering  spirit  that  takes  us  into  un- 
tamed lands  and  sections  in  advance  of  cities,  railroads,  electric 
lights,  trolley  cars  and  movies,  so  that  these  increments  shall  come 
bringing  wealth  and  ease  later.  The  city  is  no  place  for  a  man  with 
unskilled  muscles  and  a  mediocre  brain.  The  farm  beckons  him 
with  extended  hands  full  of  fruits  and  sheaves  and  a  home  made 
musical  by  an  orchestra  of  his  own  bleating  sheep,  lowing  cattle, 
neighing  horses  and  the  staccato  grunts  of  pigs.  I  know  it  is  com- 
monly supposed  that  such  choices  come,  not  from  universities^ 
but  from  industrial  and  agricultural  institutions,  but  in  my  opinion, 
not  so.  The  whole  question  is  one  of  proper  ratio  and  a  clear 
discernment  of  wise  relation  of  man  to  land,  of  opportunist  to  op- 
portunity. This  is  a  matter  of  acute  and  cultivated  observation 
and  reflection  and  the  college  is  bound  to  find  and  announce  what 
is  best  for  all  the  people,  especially  those  not  endowed  with  bril- 
liant or  powerful  intellects. 

Dr.  B.  T.  Washington,  pathfinder  of  the  common  people 
who  heard  him  gladly,  told  us  about  the  squalid  one-room  cabin 
until  it  almost  ceased  to  exist,  but  for  most  of  our  sons  and  daugh- 
ters without  means,  jobs  or  prospects,  the  cabin  beats  the  caba- 
ret, and  the  wood  lot  surpasses  the  park;  for  these  country 
inconveniences  are  not  finalities,  as  too  often  city   pleasures  are. 

In  speaking  ot  the  advancement  of  our  people,  we  cite  proper- 
ty, labor  or  educational  statistics  collected  by  experts  in  such  data, 
or  we  deduce  conclusions  from  the  analyses  of  sociologists  and 
logicians.  I  shall  state  no  figures  tonight;  rather  would  I  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  real  advancement  of  the  race  is  an 
intangible  thing  which  the  census  adding  machine  can  not  handle 
or  apprehend.  Human  bodies  may  count  one  when  moral  delin- 
quencies mark  a  fraction  or  a  zero.  Our  real  progress  is  in  scenes 
like  this  and  in  the  products  of  moral  and  mental  training  in  our 
great  Christian  colleges.  They  cannot  be  counted,  they  cannot  be 
seen;  they  are  forces,  not  things;  yet  things  will  not  move  without 
them. 

17 


Look  for  what  the  race  is  or  becoming  by  examining  its  pro- 
ducts from  school,  church  and  home.  You  will  find  by  this 
process  that  there  are  not  then  ten  millions  of  us,  nor  ninety  mil- 
lions of  others.  Moral  enumeration  rejects  all  on  the  right  of  the 
decimal  point.   God  says  "Get  on  the  whole  side  to  be  counted." 

Let  me  say  finally  that  Howard  University  has  powerfully 
affected  the  progress  of  the  land  by  the  active  participancy  of  its 
graduates  and  students  in  the  life  of  the  people  where  they  are. 
They  do  not  hoard  or  hide  their  talents;  they  are  no  hermits. 
Far  behind  have  been  left  the  lonely  and  selfish  ideals  of  the  mo- 
nastic schools.  Your  ideals  now  are  for  connecting  up  with  the 
every  day  life  of  the  people  and  bringing  to  them  the  better 
way. 

In  closing  these  greetings  and  congratulations,  I  lay  a  bouquet 
of  appreciation  for  the  Howard  of  fifty  years  and  send  up  a  pray- 
er for  such  a  widening  of  your  borders  and  strengthening  of  your 
endowment  as  shall  presage  a  coming  thousand  years  of  character 
building  and  national  impress,  so  that  at  last  niched  together  for 
faith,  foresight  and  high  service,  we  shall  see  the  men  of  1867, 
of  1917  and  those  whose  assignment  will  be  to  celebrate  the 
full  century,  and  shall  know  that  the  nation  can  take  no  hurt 
from  a  black  hand  or  a  white  hand  that  clasps  it. 


U 


IV 
Address  by  Bishop  Thirkield 

THE  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  new  individual  and  social 
life  inaugurated  by  Jesus  in  which  men  live  as  children 
of  God  and  brothers  to  their  fellowmen.  In  other 
words,  it  is  the  reign  of  God  in  human  life,  first  of  all,  here  on  the 
earth.  Its  fundamental  and  formative  idea  is  that  of  the  com- 
mon fatherhood  of  God  and  brotherhood  of  all  men.  ffThe 
kingdom  of  God  is  human,  social  and  universal  in  its  scope. 
"It  is  the  true  human  society,  it  is  a  fellowship  of  justice, 
equality  and  love."  The  Kingdom  is  much  more  comprehen- 
sive than  the  chuich  and  its  activities.  The  church  is  com- 
posed of  professed  disciples  of  Jesus.  But  the  Kingdom  includes 
the  reign  of  God  in  all  human  life;  the  business,  the  home,  the 
social,  the  educational,  the  political  as  well  as  the  church. 

Founders  of  Howard,  Men  of  the  Kingdom 

The  founders  of  Howard  University  were  men  of  the  King- 
dom. In  their  plan  for  this  institution  they  anticipated  funda- 
mental ideals  of  the  Kingdom  as  held  today.  The  progress  in 
their  enlarging  plans  is  a  fine  exhibition  of  high  idealism.  The 
institution  was  prophecy  and  hope  for  a  race.  It  read  into 
the  term  Negro  the  word  man,  and  made  provision  for  manhood 
development.  The  founders  provided  not  for  freedmen  only 
but  for  freemen.  They  saw  a  race  coming  into  a  new  set  of  cir- 
cumstances that  would  be  swamped  unless  men  of  the  race  were 
trained  to  insight  into  those  circumstances  and  to  mastery  of  cir- 
cumstances. 

Consider  the  record  of  their  progressive  movements  inspir- 
ed by  a  humanitarian  and  prophetic  spirit.  They  first  saw  a 
people  with  large  religious  endowment.  There  must  be  pro- 
vision for  their  spiritual  life  and  growth.  They  must  have  re- 
ligious leadership,  trained  ministry.  Hence,  a  Theological  In- 
stitute was   provided  to  train  preachers  and  teachers  of  the  word. 

Then  came  the  second  stage:  the  race  has  evident  powers, 
of  mind.  If  the  mental  life  of  a  people  is  to  be  developed  and 
and  guided,  they  must  have  teachers.  Hence  the  next  provision 
we  find  is  for  a  Theological  and  Normal  Institute. 

19 


But  preachers  and  teachers  must  be  men  of  vision,  of  under- 
standing, of  capacity,  breadth,  culture.  Hence,  a  college, 
a  university.  The  university  idea  opened  a  window  -through 
which  men  saw  for  the  first  time  the  before  unrealized  possibili- 
ties of  a  race.  The  very  name  lifted  up  a  new  ideal  for  a  people. 
At  first  the  plan  of  the  university  provided  only  for  colored  young 
men.  At  a  later  meeting,  Senator  Pomeroy  "moved  that  its 
doors  be  opened  to  both  sexes,  all  races,  colors  and  conditions 
of  men."  One  member  responded:  "We  are  doing  what  Ober- 
lin  did,  only  we  begin  at  the  other  end,  opening  our  doors  wide 
as  the  race  of  man."  When  the  committee  met  to  procure  a 
charter  from  Congress,  General  O.  O.  Howard  "moved  that 
the  charter  asked  be  made  to  embrace  university  privileges"  and 
include  also  medical,  collegiate,  law,  agricultural  and  preparatory 
departments.     To  this  there  was  unanimous  agreement. 

Think  of  the  holy  audacity  of  the  undertaking!  A  univer- 
sity for  a  race  just  emerging  from  bondage!  And  this  at  a  time 
when  not  merely  a  race  was  chained  to  a  system,  but  when  the 
minds  of  men  were  chained  by  preconceived  ideas;  limited  and 
bound  by  an  institution  denying  manhood  nature  and  manhood 
rights.  Under  the  circumstances,  and  with  the  prevailing  views 
at  that  time  of  those  even  who  had  most  to  do  with  the  colored 
people,  only  men  whose  vision  was  widened  by  the  truth  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  would  have  conceived,  much  less  entered  up- 
on, such  an  audacious  undertaking. 

What  possession  of  the  mind  of  the  white  race  by  the  spir- 
it of  and  movement  of  the  Kingdom  of  God!  How  changed 
the  narrow  ideal  for  the  Negro  through  preconceived  ideas  inher- 
ited from  the  slave  system!  The  very  name  university  struck  a 
new  note  in  the  history  of  a  race;  led  men  to  think  of  the  Negro 
in  new  and  larger  terms  of  life.  It  was  in  itself  a  prophecy,  an 
assertion  of  faith  in  the  manhood,  the  capacity,  the  possibilities 
of  a  lowly  and  untested  race.  This  university  expressed  in  new 
terms  the  great  words  of  Paul,  "God  hath  made  of  one  blood 
all  nations  of  men."  It  gave  fresh  significance  to  the  revealing 
word  of  Peter  "call  thou  no  man  common."  It  said  to  a  race 
just  dropping  off  chains  that  had  held  it  to  the  dust, "rise  up,  thou 
also  art  a  man."     The  old  system  meant  the  exploitation  of  man. 

20 


This  university  meant  the  exaltation  of  man.  And  the  "greatest 
enterprise  in  the  world  for  splendor  and  extent  is  the  upbuilding 
of  a  man." 

The  founders  were  men  of  prayer.  The  foundations  of 
this  University  were  cemented  in  prayer.  The  inspiration  of  this 
educational  movement  for  a  race  was  not  political,  not  primarily 
intellectual  bur  religious.  Worth  the  canvas  of  the  artist  is  the 
picture  of  those  three  Christian  generals,  with  prophetic  spirit  and 
fine  religious  enthusiasm,  standing  together  on  the  University 
height  and  saying:  "Here  is  the  spot  for  our  school."  And  with 
the  courage  of  faith  they  bought  the  site.  The  men  boldly  faced 
that  fundamental  aim  of  the  Kingdom  to  "individualize  the  down- 
most  man  and  make  him  count  as  one."  They  saw  in  the  hum- 
ble, unlettered  black  man  something  above  all  price.  Spiritual 
powers  emerging  destroyed  old  time  market  values  and  so,  amidst 
the  derision  of  some,  they  opened  university  doors  that  said  to 
every  aspiring  man  of  a  new  race  "the  Kingdom  of  God  has  come 
nigh  unto  thee."  From  this  now  classic  height  sounded  out  the 
word  to  a  prostrate  race  "rise  up,  thou  also  art  a  man."  The 
founders  were  in  harmony  with  that  Kingdom,  based  not  on 
race  assumption  or  national  prerogative,  but  whose  methods  and 
ideals  are  shaped,  and  inspired  by  the  needs,  the  capacities,  the  as- 
pirations, the  possibilities  of  man  as  man.  Hence,  this  charter, 
as  broad  as  humanity,  as  universal  as  the  needs  of  man. 

While  this  institution  was  early  subsidized  by  the  govern- 
ment and  has  in  a  measure  been  under  the  general  direction  and 
control  of  the  nation,  yet  the  principles  and  ideals  of  the  King- 
dom have  shaped  its  life  and  molded  its  spirit. 

The  methods  of  the  state  are  too  often  mechanical.  The 
methods  of  the  Kingdom  are  spiritual.  The  state,  for  example, 
said  "We  shall  make  the  Negro  a  man  by  making  him  a  voter" — 
an  external  artificial  process — the  enfranchisement  of  men  en  masse. 
It  failed. 

However,  let  me  say,  incidentally,  that  while  some  men  call 
this  a  blunder  it  was  one  of  strange  blunders  of  Providence. 
While  it  was  inevitable  that  it  should  break  down,  and  at  great 
cost  to  the  Negro,  yet  it  did  not  altogether  fail.     The  ballot  in 


21 


the  hand  of  the  Negro  for  the  first  tirrie  awakened  the  conscious- 
ness of  manhood.  It  is  a  dictum  of  Kant  always  to  treat  human- 
ity Whether  in  yourself  or  another  as  a  person,  never  as  a  thing. 
The  Negro  had  been  classed  with  chattel  and  traded  as  a  thing. 
The  ballot  in  his  hands  first  gave  him  a  name.  No  longer  was 
he  Cicero  or  Pompey  but  Cicero  Jones  and  Pompey  Washing- 
ton. The  ballot  individualized  him.  As  he  stood  erect,  his  fore- 
head bared  to  the  stars,  a  ballot  in  his  hand,  he  by  that  act  was 
lifted  out  of  the  herd  and  made  for  the  first  time  to  count  as  one. 
The  ballot  did  more  to  give  to  the  Negro  a  sense  of  personality, 
of  human  dignity  and  of  personal  right  than  all  the  schooling  of 
a  race  for  a  generation  could  have  done. 

Trained  and  efficient  manhood  in  a  democracy  is  the  essen- 
tial basis  of  participation;  and  the  question  of  a  loyal  son  of  the 
South,  Edgar  Gardner  Murphy,  must  have  ever  increasing  sig- 
nificance: "Is  the  organization  of  democracy  in  the  Southern 
states  never  to  include  him?  Is  he  never  as  a  factor  of  govern- 
ment to  be  accepted  as  a  participant  in  our  civilization?" 

The  founders  saw  that  the  real  method  for  redeeming  a  race 
into  the  larger  life  was  individual;  that  the  education,  the  trans- 
formation of  each  man  meant  a  new  center  of  abiding,  transform- 
ing influence  on  the  physical,  intellectual,  social  and  religious 
life  of  a  people.  The  founders  never  dreamed  of  the  awakening 
made  possible  through  Howard  University,  and  kindred  insti- 
tutions. 

It  is  one  thing  to  wake  up  a  body.  It  is  another  thing  to 
wake  up  a  spirit.  And  you  can't  even  wake  up  the  body  until 
the  spirjt  within  is  startled  to  life.  The  hand  is  dumb  until  the 
spirit  wakes. 

The  story  is  told  of  a  designer  who  brought  to  Jefferson 
Davis,  president  of  the  Confederacy,  a  drawing  for  an  official 
seal.  Very  appropriately,  a  cotton  bale  with  a  Negro  on  top  of 
the  bale,  fast  asleep.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Davis  viewed  the  de- 
sign thoughtfully  and  then  turning  said:  "that  seems  appropriate 
and  suggestive,  but  what  shall  we  do  when  the  Negro 
wakes  up.?" 

Who  could  have  dreamed  of  the  awakening  that  was  to 
(;ome  through  this  University!  You  don't  make  a  man  by  working 

22 


on  the  outside  but  by  waking  him  up  on  the  inside.  Wake 
up  his  brain  and  he  will  make  books  as  well  as  boxes.  Wake  up 
his  imagination  and  he  will  be  inventor  among  men.  Wake  up 
his  taste  and  he  will  paint  pictures  as  Tanner  has  done,  lifting  by 
one  stroke  the  genius  of  a  people  to  be  forever  signalized  on  the 
walls  of  the  Luxemburg.  Wake  up  his  conscience  and  he  will 
achieve  reforms  for  the  cleansing  of  a  people.  Wake  up  his 
religious  nature  and  he  will  bring  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

It  is  clear  that  in  their  visions  and  ideals  the  founders  of 
Howard  saw  beyond  their  time.  Thus  also  did  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son in  founding  the  University  of  Virginia.  It  is  significant  that 
the  direction  as  to  his  epitaph  included  no  reference  to  the  fact 
of  his  high  honor  as  Governor,  Secretary  of  State,  or  President  of 
the  Nation;  but  did  refer  to  the  fact  of  his  being  the  founder  of 
the  University  of  Virginia,  his  authorship  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  of  the  Virginia  statute  guaranteeing  religious 
liberty.  Such  also  the  distinction  of  the  founders  of  Howard. 
This  University  as  it  stands  today,  with  its  guarantee  of  genuine 
university  privileges,  with  its  independence  of  thought  and  free- 
dom from  all  the  narrow  religious  discriminations,  that  is,  intel- 
lectual opportunity,  civil  independence  and  religious  freedom, — 
this  is  your  heritage  through  the  founders. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  observation.  The 
methods  of  Howard  in  behalf  of  a  race  were  in  harmony 
with  this  principle.  Slow  and  silent  was  its  work,  opened  not  in 
great  buildings  but  in  an  old  store  room.  No  trumpet,  no  force; 
— just  the  quiet  process  of  education  developing,  molding, 
inspiring.  Like  the  Kingdom,  Howard  has  stood  for  emancipa- 
tion into  a  new  social  order, — not  by  force,  not  by  revolution, 
but  by  the  slow  process  of  evolution. 

The  founders  believed  in  the  power  of  emancipated  human 
personality — in  the  reforming,  uplifting  influence  of  a  mind  set 
free  by  God  and  energized  through  the  spirit  of  a  constructive 
purpose.  It  was  the  kindling  of  a  fire  at  which  elect  souls, 
one  by  one,  have  lighted  their  torches.  Thousands  since  have 
taken  their  lights  from  the  same  altar  and  passed  it  on. 

While  others  were  standing  in  doubt  and  some  in  scorn 
asking,  "What  about  the  Negro,  any   way?     Has  he  manhood 

23 


Capacities,  pc\Vers,  possibilities?  What  sort  of  an  education  shall 
we  give  of  suffer  this  freed  slave,  the  founders  divined  what  was 
in  him.  They  provided  for  the  experimental  method  ;  ''try  him 
and  see."  In  answer  to  the  question,  "When  will  'this  boy'  be- 
come a  man?'  they  with  the  prophetic  eye  and  hope  of  a  fa- 
ther said,  "Look  into  his  eye,  and  see  the  man  now^ 

Amidst  the  surging,  inert,  dull-eyed  mass  of  freedmen  walk- 
ing forth  with  shambling  steps,  and  uncertain,  they  saw  emerging 
individuals  who  were  slowly  finding  themselves  and  rising  into  a 
grasp  of  personality.  A  fundamental  principle  of  the  Kingdom 
is  the  sacredness  and  possibility  of  personality.  History  proves 
that  every  race  waits  for  the  coming  into  its  life  and  leadership  of 
the  power  of  elect  personalities.  To  adapt  the  word  of  Paul, 
"The  earnest  expectation  of  the  creation  waited  for  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  Sons  of  God."  And  it  is  true  that  the  earnest  ex- 
pectation of  every  race  is  for  the  manifestation,  the  coming  forth, 
of  its  genuine  Sons  of  God — men  of  faith;  men  of  vision;  men 
of  developed  capacity;  men  of  power;  men  who  lead;  men  who 
dare;  men  who  do. 

Methods  of  Howard,  the  Methods 
of  the  Kingdom 

The  methods  of  Howard  are  the  methods  of  the  Kingdom, 
the  redemption  of  a  race  through  the  picked,  equipped,  illumined, 
inspired  personalities  of  the  race.  The  hope  of  the  mass  of  any 
race  is  not  in  men  but  in  the  master  man.  What  a  colossal  prob- 
lem the  founders  faced, — the  redemption  of  a  race  that  had  not 
found  its  soul;  a  race  yet  in  the  mass;  still  a  part  of  the  imper- 
sonal herd.  But  they  took  as  ever  true  that  word:  "The  King- 
dom of  God  is  within  you."  They  were  right,  for  all  perma- 
nent redemption  of  any  people  is  from  within.  A  race  waits 
until  leaders  arise  from  its  own  body.  And  so  Howard  Univer- 
sity stands  for  trained  leadership.  With  Mrs.  Browning  it  be- 
lieves that  "It  takes  a  soul  to  move  a  body;  it  takes  a  high 
souled  man  to  move  the  masses  even  to  a  cleaner  sty." 

The  Kingdom  stands  for  humanity.  We  talk  of  our  race 
problems.  The  Kingdom  sees  in  them  all  the  human  problem. 
All  men  are  human  first,   racial  afterwards,     When  men  would 

24 


obscure  the  problem  of  race  development,  they  throw  dust  in  the 
eyes  by  sputtering  about  social  equality.  Social  equality  is  still 
the  cry  of  the  demagogue.  The  principles  of  this  institution 
harmonize  with  those  of  the  Kingdom  in  standing  for  a  footing 
of  equality  of  opportunity  for  every  man  in  the  struggle,  the  busi- 
ness, the  achievement  of  life.  He  who  would  deny  any  human 
being  the  god-ordained  right  to  be,  to  realize  himself,  to  achieve, 
is  in  league  with  death  and  in  covenant  with  the  devil — the  great 
denier  from  the  beginning;  and  a  society  that  refuses  to  provide 
the  lowest  man  with  the  opportunity  for  self-development,  and 
turns  him  into  a  thing  and  a  means  to  another's  comfort  or  power 
or  plenty,  is  a  compact  with  hell. 

Place  of  Graduates  in  the  Kingdom 

It  is  fitting  on  this  anniversary  occasion  that  we  should  con- 
sider the  place  of  the  graduates  of  this  institution  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Kingdom. 

And  first,  who  can  estimate  the  redeeming  and  uplifting 
influence  of  the  four  hundred  and  twenty-three  graduates  from  the 
School  of  Theology,  besides  the  nearly  half  thousand  who  have 
been  trained  in  the  night  school  or  through  partial  courses,  who 
have  gone  forth  "preaching  the  gospel  of  the  Kingdom"  in  this 
and  other  lands.  For  a  proper  estimate  of  their  work  we 
must  realize  that  the  church  among  colored  people  is  still  the 
center  of  power.  It  has  been  the  center  of  their  intellectual, 
moral,  social  and  even  political  life.  How  sacred,  how  mo- 
mentous the  task  of  fitting  these  men  for  their  work!  Lead- 
ers with  the  power  co  redeem  and  lift  and  cleanse  the  life  must 
come  from  among  the  people.  A  native  ministry  is  required. 
Lack  of  this  has  weakened  Christian  missions  in  more  than  one 
field.  Sweeping  victories  for  example  were  won  by  early  mis- 
sionaries in  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  Later,  the  natives  assumed 
control.  A  fatal  oversight  was  the  neglect  in  training  native 
leaders  and  teachers.  Soon  the  church  lost  in  religious  power 
and  efficiency.     So  it  was  also  in  the  China  Inland  Mission. 

Denominational  strife  and  sectarian  rivalry  are  apt  to  char- 
acterize the  church  life  of  an  untrained  backward  people.  This 
School  of  Theology  by  the  breadth  of  its  teaching  and  the  lib- 
erality of  its  spirit  has  through  its  hundreds  of  graduates  done 

25 


much  to  broaden  and  enrich  the  religious  thought  and  life  of  a 
people,  and  to  lessen  sectarian  rivalry  so  hostile  to  the  real  prog- 
ress of  the  Kingdom. 

Again,  who  can  estimate  the  influence  of  this  school  in 
raising  up  men  with  the  qualities  of  leadership  able  to  meet  the 
civil,  moral  and  social  reforms  among  the  people.  To  lead  a 
race  out  into  the  larger  privileges  and  obligations  of  the  Kingdom 
requires  a  ministry  that  proves  by  its  masterful  grasp  and  its  brave 
treatment  of  all  these  questions  its  right  to  leadership. 

Christian  impulse  and  conviction  have  carried  some  of  these 
graduates  to  Africa  and  to  the  Islands  of  the  seas.  I  regret  that 
more  of  them  have  not  heard  the  call  to  the  vast  fields  in  the  far 
South  *vhich  are  white  unto  harvest. 

The  Kingdom  stands  for  the  principle  that  every  man  is  a 
child  of  God;  a  person,  not  a  thing;  a  human  being  with  aspira- 
tions, hopes,  fears,  not  a  machine;  an  end  in  himself,  not  a 
means  to  an  end.  The  far  reaching  readjustment  which  this 
principle  requires,  it  has  been  well  said,  may  be  more  significant 
than  the  abolition  of  slavery.  This  principle  lies  at  the  basis  of 
the  work  of  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  and  the  Teachers 
College. 

A  genuinely  Christian  democracy  may  be  the  outcome  of 
the  realization  of  this  ideal.  The  assumption  that  any  race  shall 
be  permanently  subordinated  on  account  of  the  prejudices  of  men, 
or  for  the  larger  ease  and  comforts  of  any  class  of  men,  is  abhor- 
rent to  the  Kingdom.  So  while  the  fabric  of  our  national  life 
may  be  of  many  colors  yet  it  should  be  a  seamless  robe  covering 
in  its  ample  folds  all  races  and  classes  of  men. 

The  Kingdom  has  to  do  with  the  whole  life  of  man.  Thus 
the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  takes  its  place  in  the  plan  of  the 
Kingdom,  for  it  stands  for  the  realization  of  the  whole  human 
powers  that  God  has  given  to  man.  This  college  stands  for  the 
Christian  conception  of  personality — the  sacredness  of  personali- 
ty, the  equipment  of  personality,  that  is  the  education  of  the 
whole  man.  Its  ideal  is  manhood,  virile,  broad-minded,  sun- 
crowned  manhood.  It  has  exalted  the  spirit  in  man  as  worthy 
of  supreme  emphasis.  In  harmony  with  this  view  are  the  strong 
words  of  the  Dean   of  the  College  who    appeals  for  a  method  of 

26 


education  where  the  chief  stress  is  laid  upon  the  high  spiritual 
values  "that  will  quickly  arouse  and  quicken  the  slumbering 
powers  of  a  depressed  and  retarded  people."  "The  missionaries 
who  came  from  the  North,"  says  he,  "approached  the  Negro 
problem  on  the  heavenly  side.  The  work  which  they  ac- 
complished for  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  perhaps  not  been 
equalled  by  any  Christian  endeavor  in  modern  times.  We  hear 
much  talk  about  efficiency;  but  efficiency  without  consecration, 
like  the  letter  without  the  spirit,  is  nugatory  and  dead."  This 
contains  in  substance  my  creed  as  to  the  value  education  of  the 
Negro  race  as  a  means  of  promoting  the  coming  of  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

Who  can  measure  the  ever  broadening  influence  of  the  four 
hundred  sixty-eight  graduates  inspired  by  such  ideals  from  this  Col- 
lege during  the  past  half-century?  Its  high  aims  give  illustration 
and  enforcement  to  that  strong  word  by  Henry  Drummond. 
"God  is  all  for  quality;  man  is  for  quantity.  But  the  immediate 
need  of  the  world  at  this  moment  is  not  more  of  us,  but  if  I  may 
use  the  expression,  a  better  brand  of  us.  To  secure  ten  men  of 
an  improved  type  would  be  better  than  if  we  had  ten  thousand 
of  the  average  Christians  distributed  over  the  world." 

And  so  ten  Negroes  of  an  improved  type  can  do  more  for 
their  race  — and  that  means  for  humanity  — than  ten  thousand  av- 
erage Negroes  distributed  over  America. 

For  example,  take  the  outcome  of  the  life  and  work  of  a  sin- 
gle graduate  who  for  a  third  of  a  century  has  been  teacher,  friend, 
example,  counselor  to  thousands  of  young  men  and  women;  who 
as  instructor  and  author,  has  moulded  the  thought  and  inspired 
the  ideals  of  multitudes  of  people  over  our  land — the  present  effi- 
cient Dean  of  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  If  all  that 
Howard  University  had  done  in  fifty  years  was  to  make  one  such 
life  possible, — as  example  and  teacher  of  youth, — lift  it  from 
lowly  conditions,  quicken  and  sharpen  such  an  intellect  and  di- 
rect one  such  pen  to  noble  and  enduring  expression,  it  would  be 
worth  the  investment  as  related  to  the  unfolding  Kingdom 
through  a  race. 

The  equipment  of  teachers  is  of  primary  importance  in  the 
progress  of  a  race.  The  true  teacher  gives  a  man  right  attitude 
towards  truth,  confirms  him  in  his  moral  relation  to  things  and 
directs  in  his  choice  of  the  highest  and  best.     The  segregation  of 

27 


a  race  makes  this  teacher-training  doubly  imperative.  Hence  it 
is  beyond  our  power  to  properly  evaluate  the  ever  widening  in- 
fluence of  the  three  hundred  seventy-six  graduates  of  the  Teach- 
ers College,  in  shaping  the  methods,  and  in  determining  the  stand- 
ards and  ideals  for  hundreds  of  schools  and  thousands  of  teach- 
ers in  our  land.  The  function  of  this  Teachers  College  is  to 
reach  the  individual  not  merely  for  his  own  sake  but  the  sake  of 
the  untaught  mass,  giving  him  revelation  of  capacity,  inspiration 
and  power  of  achievement,  that  he  may  pass  it  on  in  ever  wid- 
ening circles  of  influence. 

When  we  recognize  how  large  a  part  of  the  social  ills  of  any 
race  proceed  not  from  social  opposition  or  mal-adjustment  but 
"from  the  fault  of  human  beings  themselves  in  their  own  interior 
misdirected  and  redeemable  lives,"  the  work  of  the  Teachers 
College   takes  its  proper  place  in  any  plan  for  the  Kingdom. 

The  School  of  Manual  Arts  and  Applied  Sciences  stands  for 
professional,  technical  and  vocational,  training  under  the  conviction 
that  industrial  training  has  not  only  a  financial  but  intellectual 
and  moral  value.  It  deplores  the  materialistic  and  narrowly  utilita- 
rian aim  that  would  sacrifice  the  freedom  and  breadth  of  the  larg- 
er life.  While  training  the  hand,  it  would  give  such  mental 
and  moral  outlook  as  shall  enable  one  to  lift  his  task  to  the  level 
of  the  noblest  ideal.  It  would  teach  men  not  to  get  out  of  work 
but  to  get  more  out  of  their  work.  This  school  has  trained 
many  hundreds  in  household  economics  and  manual  arts.  Many 
of  them  have  gone  forth  as  skilled  teachers  to  train  thousands. 
From  its  recent  engineering  courses  it  already  has  two  graduates 
who  are  successful  engineers  in  Porto  Rico  and  one  who  has  laid 
out  a  large  tract  of  land  for  the  settlement  by  colored  people  in 
Panama.  It  has  thus  helped  a  race  to  take  a  larger  phce  in  the 
Kingdom  established  by  the  Carpenter. 

If  to  teach  men  to  do  justly,  to  love  righteousness,  to  make 
the  spirit  of  legal  justice  prevail  in  the  thought  and  moral  sense 
of  a  people  is  included  in  the  work  of  the  Kingdom,  then  the 
School  of  Law  with  its  771  graduates  has  had  its  part  in  relating 
the  life  of  the  race  to  the  Kingdom. 

It  is  significant  that  of  the  three  chairs  of  instruction  in  the 
original  Theological  school,   one  was  designed   "Anatomy  and 

28 


Physiology  in  their  special  relation  to  Hygiene."  In  harmony  with 
this  is  Christ's  message  for  the  Kingdom,  "For  Jesus  went 
about  through  the  cities  and  villages  teaching  in  their  synagogues, 
preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  arid  healing  of  all  manner  of 
diseases  and  all  manner  of  sickness. 

The  Kingdom  recognizes  the  solidarity  of  the  human  race 
in  contact,  relation  and  interest.  The  millions  are  mixed  through 
inevitable  contact.  Disease  draws  no  race  lines.  Consumption 
is  not  hereditary  but  contagious.  The  percentage  among  Ne- 
groes in  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis  and  Chicago  is  three  times  as 
great  as  among  the  white  people.  The  founders  of  Howard 
were  wise  beyond  their  day  and  proved  benefactors  of  a  nation  in 
establishing  the  School  of  Medicine.  In  equipment  and  efficien- 
cy it  has  won  the  confidence  of  the  profession.  That  devotion 
to  the  Kingdom  is  revealed  in  the  continuity  of  service  in  nine 
members  of  the  faculty  which  aggregates  over  two  hundred  and 
sixty  years.  And  who  can  estimate  the  value  to  the  nation  of 
the  professional  services  of  the  one  thousand  physicians,  three 
hundred  and  twenty-four  dentists,  two  hundred  and  fifty-four 
pharmaceutical  graduates  who  through  a  half  century  have  min- 
istered to  have  physical  needs  of  millions  of  colored  people!  In 
the  study  of  diseases  peculiar  to  the  Negro,  in  the  prevention 
of  epidemics,  in  strengthening  its  frightful  mortality,  they  take 
their  place  among  the  benefactors  of  all  men  and  servants  of  the 
Kingdom. 

The  Academy  and  Commercial  College  have  been  essen- 
tial in  the  education  of  a  people  who  have  so  few  secondary  and 
business  schools.  They  have  given  the  needed  educational  foun- 
dation for  many  hundreds  who  afterward  took  courses  in  the 
College  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  Teachers  College  or  professional 
schools.  Others  of  their  graduates  and  students  have  served  the 
world  well  in  home,  school  or  business.  These  departments 
have  thus  made  their  unmeasured  contribution  to  the  larger  life 
which  the  Kingdom  gives  the  world. 

The  Conservatory  of  Music  has  cultivated  the  soul  in  the 
expression  of  the  highest  emotions  in  music.  Surely  to  develop 
self-realization  and  expression  in  a  musically  endowed  race 
is  helping  it  to  add   to  the  harmonies  of    the    Kingdom    whose 

29 


founder  said  f  I  am  come  that  they  may  have  life  and  may  have 
it  more  abundantly." 

Not  for  Self,  But  for  Their  Sakes 

Finally,  the  social  law  and  inspiring  motive  of  the  Kingdom 
is  fulfilled  in  the  saying  of  Jesus,  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  my- 
self.' So  also  may  every  son  of  Howard  say;  "I  educate  my- 
self, I  equip  myself,  I  develop  myself  in  this  University,  I  conse- 
crate myself,  not  for  pride  of  self-culture  or  for  domination  of  my 
fellows  or  for  coveteous  money-getting  or  earth-heaping, — but 
"for  their  sakes.'"  If  we  are  to  take  our  place  in  God's  plan  for 
the  Kingdom,  we  must  follow  in  the  steps  of  Him  who  came 
"not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister  and  to  give  His  life 
a  ransom  for  many." 

In  harmony  with  this  principle  is  the  thought  of  Ruskin, 
who  sees  the  roots  of  honor  for  every  profession  in  its  capacity 
of  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  all.  "The  duty  of  all  men  is  on 
occasion  to  die  for  it:  the  soldier  rather  than  leave  his  post  in 
battle;  the  physician  rather  than  leave  his  post  in  the  plague; 
the  pastor  rather  than  to  teach  falsehood;  the  lawyer  rather  than 
countenance  injustice;  for  truly  the  man  who  does  not  know 
when  to  die  does  not  know  how  to  live."  Sons  of  Howard,  may 
you  prove  worthy  of  your  heritage  through  the  founders.  They 
were  sons  of  the  Puritans  not  unused  to  hardships.  So  do  thou 
in  self-discipline,  heroism,  self-sacrifice,  endure  hardships  as  a 
good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ.  By  example  and  word  call  the 
race  to  a  new  puritanism  spirit. 

Be  men  of  spiritual  vision,  men  of  moral  conviction,  men 
with  a  prophet's  senseof  eternal  values,  men  with  the  modern  social 
conciousness,  men  of  high  enthusiasms,  men  with  a  noble  passion 
for  man,  men  with  the  heroism  of  sacrifice  and  service,  men  with 
a  passion  for  righteousness,  standard-bearers  of  truth,  consecrated 
to  service.  For  true  is  the  word  of  a  modern  prophet,  "hell  yawns 
beneath  a  society  that  is  not  absolutely  in  earnest  with  its  own 
social  betterment." 

Oriental  civilization  roots  in  the  past.  The  Kingdom  of 
God  looks  to  the  future.  It  is  a  significant  observation  of  Ben- 
jamin Kidd  that  militarism  roots  itself  in  the  present,  ecclesiasti- 
cism  in  the  past;  but  the  chief  characteristic  of  Western  civili- 
zation is  that  it  roots  itself  in  the  future. 

30 


The  short  half  century  of  this  University  spans  the  intellec- 
tual, the  historical  life  of  the  American  Negro.  While  its  roots 
do  not  strike  deep  into  the  past,  the  eternal  years  beckon  on  with 
their  unmeasured  opportunity.  This  calls  for  the  attitude  of 
faith,  the  vision  of  the  unseen;  and  it  is  this  faith  and  vision  that 
give  the  larger  environment,  the  wider  sweep  of  power  to  any 
people. 

Therefore,  face  the  future  with  firm  heart  and  undaunted 
courage.  Look  up  and  forward,  not  down  or  back.  Let  the 
dead  past  with  its  outworn  institutions  bury  its  dead.  With  un- 
dying hope  and  a  persistence  that  falters  not,  nor  yields,  fix  your 
eye  on  the  goal  of  the  Kingdom — and  fight  for  it.  With  a  fresh 
sense  of  consecration,  on  this  Anniversary  Day,  kindle  anew  the 
flame  of  your  devotion  on  the  altar  of  service.  Then  burn  thou 
and  consume  for  God  and  man.      Burn  to  the  socket. 


31 


Important  Notice  to  Alumni 


H  The  number  of  the  HOWARD  UNIVERSITY 
RECORD  for  January  1918  will  contain  the  impor- 
tant portions  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Sociological 
Conference  which  was  held  March  first  and  second, 
1917  in  connection  with  our  Semi-Centennial. 


*\\  We  request  all  alumni  who   have  changed  their 
addresses  since  our  last  information  to  send  us  word. 


